Illusion
by greenteamoose
Summary: His visit years after he left is an illusion after all, but she cannot help thinking that a part of it might be real... or is it? Perhaps the answer lies with dango. /Oneshot, ItachixAnko


**Illusion**

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**A/N**: When I first read an Itachi/Anko fic, I was pretty skeptical about it (as in WHAT KIND OF PAIRING IS THIS!!! -super spaz-). Then after a while, I thought it was pretty cool and produced this fic featuring the pairing and their favorite food, dango. Enjoy!

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Humming happily to herself, Mitarashi Anko gingerly carried her fresh dango, three plump dumplings on each skewer, as she made her way down the cobbled streets of Konohagakure. It was her day off from duty, and the footsteps of the tokubetsu jounin were light and cheery: perfectly matching the mood of the dazzling summer day. While lavish sunshine shimmered down upon the village and the mountainsides bearing the faces of the five Hokage, the cloud-dappled sky harmonized in a lucid overture of caressing breezes. Everywhere, the violet-haired young woman could see the lively preparations of this evening's festival, one of the most celebrated events of the year. 

The ends of her lips curving slightly at these welcoming sights, she turned once she reached the oak tree and headed towards her small house. Casually pushing open the loose door (she was too lazy to repair its lock; her house was full of traps for intruders anyway), she set her dango skewers on a porcelain plate that she saved specially for her favorite food.

Before she could plop down on the chair and savor in the delicate stickiness and sweetness of the dango, Anko suddenly sensed a presence lurking in the shadows behind her. She cursed silently; it must have slipped by her sharp senses when she was preening over her food.

In one swift motion refined through all her training, her fingers clutched the cold metal of a kunai in her hip holster and let it fly in the direction of the shadows. There was a sharp clang as her knife was countered by another. Already in an offensive stance, Anko set her shinobi senses on full alert. The jounin was preparing to perform a jutsu when the presence in the shadows spoke her name.

"Anko-chan."

The quiet tenor tone rippled lightly through the empty room and pierced straight through her heart. She froze in the middle of a tora hand seal at the sound of the honorific at the end of her name: a combination she had not heard in years.

_This voice…_

Despite her wildly-thumping heart, the composed Anko withdrew the expression of unexpected surprise etched on her face and replaced it with an impassive one. She surreptitiously slipped her hand into her holster for another kunai as the figure stepped out of the watery darkness like an otherworldly spirit. In the hazy sunlight that streamed through the dusty windows, his crimson eyes gleamed serenely like softly glowing rubies partially hidden in the dusty earth. The lower half of his face was covered by the neckband of the inky black cloak of red clouds.

Anko gritted her teeth when she spotted the slash on the metal Konoha hitai-ate and thus fully confirmed the identity of the man standing before her. She swallowed hard, attempting to dissipate the lump that had congealed in her throat, and when she spoke, she hoped that her voice was not quivering.

"Itachi…" she finally managed to whisper. "Why are you here?"

"I wanted to see you."

His calm response unnerved her, but it was a vague sensation that she easily brushed aside, albeit the fact that she was facing an S-class criminal who had slaughtered his entire clan and ran off to join the most notorious organization in the shinobi world.

"If anyone finds out that you're here…" Anko began cautiously.

"No one will," replied Itachi in his monotonous tone. "This is a genjutsu. None of it is real."

Anko laughed humorlessly.

"A genjutsu, huh? Everything is about illusions for you," she said bitterly. "So deceptive, so meaningless. I never would have guessed… The last time I saw you, you were walking around in such a trance; I thought you were mourning the death of Uchiha Shisui, so I avoided you in order to let you mourn in peace… Then what do I hear in two days? That you've killed your entire clan and have defected from Konoha without telling me anything? What was I supposed to make out of it, huh, Itachi??"

By the end of her rant, her voice had risen exponentially, barely concealing the unbearable pain that she had tried so much to conceal for years. It was the duty of the shinobi to cut off all emotion, but it didn't matter anyway, right? This was an illusion, after all; no one could hear her except Itachi, and he wouldn't give a damn in any case. The man she was talking to was a heartless murderer, not the quiet Itachi she had grown to love during their time together in ANBU.

Itachi idly watched some dust particles flitting around her high violet ponytail. Some stray strands of her hair waved like willow branches swaying in the wind, and he was suddenly mesmerized by the breath-taking simplicity of this beauty. Somewhat reluctantly, he dragged his gaze back into Anko's dark brown eyes.

"It was necessary," he finally uttered stoically, giving the same reason he had to his foolish little brother.

"Necessary??" she growled, her eyes flashing angrily. "There was absolutely no point in killing all those people. They were your flesh and blood! You betrayed your own clan and your village! You betrayed me! You… you've…"

An intense pain clenched her heart, and she fought back a broken sob.

Itachi closed his eyes… wearily? Anko could not read his expressions anymore, or perhaps the Itachi she knew, the one who handed her medicinal herbs after she sustained injuries on a mission, the one who looked at her with mysterious eyes that were unreadable yet caring deep inside, the one who shared dango with her at their favorite teahouse… Maybe it, everything in its entirety, had always been an illusion.

"Anko-chan," he said calmly. "I did not come to talk about this."

"Then why the hell are you here?" she snapped.

Inside her holster, she gripped the kunai even more tightly until her fingers cried out in pain, but this pain was nothing—absolutely nothing, pitiful things—compared to the pain festering in her heart. It wailed in yearning, in desire of the old times when the situation was less complicated and she could grin mischievously without hiding anything deep within herself.

She remembered his question…

"_Why do you smile so happily, Anko-chan?" Itachi asked, his black eyes gazing at her glowing face._

_They had just completed an ANBU mission and were enjoying the dancing twilight as they walked down the path. Against a lucid setting sun, crickets were beginning to twitter timorously in the early stages of dusk._

"_Why do you care so much, Ita-kun?" she said playfully, making a face at the other teenager._

_He averted his gaze, staring instead at a patch of flowers so that she could not see the flickering change in his usually emotionless eyes. The katana he carried in his hand suddenly felt heavier as his conscience grew warier of what he would say next._

"_We're always taught that we shinobi are supposed to cut off our feelings," Itachi murmured, picking his words cautiously. "I just thought that it's strange you're always smiling. Are you perhaps hiding something?"_

_He glanced sideways at his teammate._

_Anko adjusted her Konoha hitai-ate and peered innocently at the goldenrod clouds above._

"_It's a nice evening," she said deliberately. "Why don't we go get some dango?"_

_With that said, she dashed off, her violet hair prancing with each step she took. When she stopped in her tracks, she suddenly whirled around and waved wildly to Itachi, who had paused in the middle of the road and was staring at her with an unreadable expression. She grinned once again._

"_Last one to reach the teahouse has to pay the bill!" the young woman shouted._

_Itachi looked down, his bangs hiding the faintest traces of a sad smile. Sighing, he masked his stirring emotions and ran after the laughing Anko without betraying any of his inner turmoil. As they headed towards the teahouse they visited so often, Anko told him silently that she smiled just for him because he was the only one for whom she would give a genuine grin and because he was the only one who had truly accepted her after she returned from Orochimaru's hell with a dormant curse mark. She knew the smile would always lift his spirits and hers as well._

_Then… he broke her heart._

_The news of the Uchiha massacre at the hands of its budding prodigy came as a shockwave to her. He had left without saying anything, without bidding her farewell or giving her a reason for committing such atrocity. She had recalled sensing that Itachi was straying off the path, but she merely thought that he was exhausted from all his ANBU missions, having been made captain recently, and wanted some time alone. _

_Never would she have thought that he would slaughter his own clan in such cold blood, never flinching with each slash, never wavering on his decision. And never would she again give a true smile radiating happiness from the inner core of her heart._

Anko sighed.

"Why are you here?" she repeated more softly.

Itachi's scarlet eyes flickered to the dango.

"Let's have some dango," he said casually, striding over to the table.

Anko seethed as she remembered a similar response she had given him to avoid answering a question. Snorting, she stomped to the sitting Uchiha and snatched the plate away, holding it high above the missing-nin's head.

"No dango for you until you answer my question, Itachi," she snapped.

He slowly raised his head, and Anko nearly dropped the holy plate of dango upon staring straight into his crimson orbs, those beautiful jewels that she remembered, as though during a time in another life, had glittered gently under the sun but blazed with cold fire on the moonlit blood-strewn field. The Sharingan was gently swirling now, and Anko felt as though she was being shrouded in a warm billowing veil. Her heart swelled with a sort of admiration, and she suddenly realized, with a skipped heartbeat, that she had missed him. Missed him with such dreadful longing that the reopened wound deep in her heart wept joyous tears. Missed him so dearly that she had not even been aware of the throbbing soreness in her soul all this time.

"It doesn't matter, Anko-chan," Itachi said calmly.

His eyes never leaving her perplexed face, he stood up and carefully raised a hand to touch Anko's cheek. The young woman flinched. Her jounin rationalism screamed at her to quickly, quickly, quickly kill this mass murderer before the chance slipped by, but her beating heart successfully crushed this fleeting urge to pierce his chest with the kunai she was still holding in her holster with a much looser grip. She placed the platter of dango back onto the table.

Still maintaining a steady eye contact, Itachi drew closer to Anko and unlocked the hidden sentiments he had worked to bury through all his harsh training and rugged missions, allowing all his feelings to flood and shower his entire being in this one tender moment with closed eyes as his lips gently pressed against hers.

Anko was surprised, but she gave no sign of resistance as she sank into the kiss, fully pushing aside any remaining hesitation and doubts her mind might have held. Suddenly, she remembered and yearned for the ANBU days when she would grin freely and carry out her missions with the thought of spending time with Itachi afterwards. But those times were all but gone, scattered in the blustering wind like fallen crinkled leaves of late autumn that scampered and skittered upon the rough ground. Perhaps those days, those memories, never existed to begin with, and the Itachi she had always known truly were an illusion. Perhaps even this single moment was an illusion, a non-existing fragment of a non-existing shattered life.

They parted gently, and Anko's heart fluttered with trepidation at losing this illusion.

"This is good-bye, Anko-chan," Itachi said quietly, stepping away from her.

"Itachi…"

Suddenly Anko felt herself being drenched in a chilling breath of wind. The cold filled every crevice of her conscience, and she fell into a swirling endless darkness as she lost sight of everything. Uncharacteristic panic swept over her as she began to flail helplessly.

"No, Itachi! Don't go!" she shouted frightfully.

But her cries fell upon deaf ears as she slipped into unconsciousness in the whirling darkness before she abruptly opened her eyes only to find herself lying on her rugged couch.

She blinked, feeling disconcerted and bearing a numbing headache as she sat up and rubbed her temple.

As memories of the past event flooded back into her mind, she yelped and jumped up in a very un-jounin-like manner, holding out the kunai that she had been holding… the kunai she had clenched in her hand since when…?

Her breathes coming out in uneven hitches, Anko slowly lowered her hand, questions reverberating through her head. If that all had been a genjutsu, why was she holding the kunai that she had been clutching in the illusion? Wasn't Itachi's visit only a dream?

Quickly, her eyes shot to the plate of dango on the table.

One skewer was missing.

Somewhere along the outskirts of a forest, two missing-nin dressed in black garb with red clouds travelled down a sandy path leading out of Konohagakure.

The taller of the two, carrying a colossal sword wrapped in white cloth, turned to his partner.

"Did you get a bite to eat, Itachi-san?" he inquired in a gruff voice.

"Aa," the other, with raven-colored hair, replied simply in affirmation.

He was finishing the last dango on the skewer.

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**A/N**: Let's ignore the fact that Anko probably was never in ANBU… but we never know. I want some dango now! (drools) Please R&R. 


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